1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus, a self-sealing unit, and a liquid ejecting head. Particularly, the invention is useful to be applied to, for example, an ink jet type recording apparatus having a self-sealing unit which ejects ink as liquid.
2. Related Art
An ink jet type recording apparatus (hereinafter, also referred to as a recording apparatus) having, for example, an ink jet type recording head (hereinafter, also referred to as a recording head), in which recording is performed in such a manner that ink in a liquid state is ejected, as ink droplets, through nozzles of the recording head has been known as a representative example of a liquid ejecting apparatus.
In some of the recording apparatuses of such a type, an ink jet type recording head unit (hereinafter, referred to as a head unit) is constituted by a plurality of recording heads which have nozzle rows constituted by a plurality of rows of nozzles and are aligned and fixed to a sub-carriage and the head unit is mounted on a main carriage. In the recording head constituting the head unit, a type which has a liquid flow path through which liquid is supplied to a pressure generation chamber communicating with nozzles and causes ink droplets to be ejected through the nozzles, using the pressure acting on ink in the pressure generation chamber in accordance with displacement of, for example, a piezoelectric element has been known.
In some of the recording heads of such a type, a self-sealing unit and a head main body are integrally constituted (see JP-A-2012-166420, for example). In this case, the head main body means a member which includes both a flow path unit that forms a liquid flow path including a plurality of pressure generation chambers communicating with respective nozzles and a pressure generation unit that is constituted by, for example, a piezoelectric element generating change in the pressure of ink in the pressure generation chamber. In the self-sealing unit, a part of the liquid flow path is formed, for example, in such a manner that an opening of a concave portion formed in a lateral surface intersecting with a nozzle forming surface of the recording head is sealed by a film. Furthermore, a valve body is disposed in the middle of the liquid flow path. In a normal state, the valve body is biased to close the liquid flow path. When the inside of the liquid flow path sealed by the film is in the negative pressure state in accordance with ejection of ink, the valve body is pressed by the film displaced by the negative pressure and opens the liquid flow path.
Accordingly, when the negative pressure is generated, in accordance with ejection of the ink, in the liquid flow path sealed by the film, the film presses the valve body. Then, the valve body is opened by the pressing force and thus, the ink flows through the liquid flow path and is supplied to the pressure generation chamber.
In the recording apparatus of the related art, which includes the self-sealing unit as described above, a head unit is formed by making, into a unit, a plurality of recording heads in a state in which the recording heads are aligned in a direction perpendicular to a transporting direction of a printing medium. When the recording heads are made into a unit, the respective recording heads are arranged in a state where the central lines of upper surfaces of the respective self-sealing units, relative to the transporting direction, are set to be parallel to the transporting direction.
Meanwhile, in some case, the inclined arrangement of the self-sealing unit, relative to the transporting direction, is intended from, for example, the relationship in the layout in a substrate, relative to a flow path substrate connected to the self-sealing unit or a circuit substrate laminated on the flow path substrate. In this case, when the self-sealing unit of the related art is arranged to be simply inclined without any change, the size of the installation area of the self-sealing unit increases in the transporting direction. As a result, there is a problem in that an increase in the size of the recording apparatus is caused.
Such a problem is not limited to an ink jet type recording apparatus in which ink droplets are ejected but is shared by a liquid ejecting apparatus in which other liquid droplets are ejected.